Introduction During her lifetime Augusta Webster received critical acclaim for her poetry, which reflects themes about the treatment of women in England during the Victorian Era. Although after her death Webster received little public attention, the 1990s saw a renewal of interest in her work and acknowledgement of her importance as a female Victorian poet and, in particular, as a writer of dramatic monologues. Biography Julia Augusta Webster (nee Davies) was born on January 30, 1837, in Poole in the county of Dorset on the southern coast of England. Her parents were Julia Hume and George Davies, a naval officer; she had five siblings. During her childhood, Webster was influenced by the work of her maternal grandfather, Joseph Hume. In 1812, Hume had published a translation of Dante’s Inferno in blank verse, and his friends included notable Romantic writers including William Hazlitt, William Godwin and Charles Lamb. Some scholars such as Hickok have speculated that association with her grandfather “sparked [Webster’s] interest in classical and modern languages, and in religious themes” (333). In fact, Webster went on to study Greek, French, Italian and Spanish, “taking a particular interest in Greek drama” (333). Her interest in languages and in drama influenced and informed her later works.
Webster spent some of her childhood aboard HMS Griper, shown here circa 1824 (Wikimedia Commons)
Webster's work was also influenced by her childhood travels. Her father’s career aboard the HMS Griper meant that Webster sailed around England and Scotland; she also stayed for several months in Geneva and France during her early twenties. Having spent “much of her early childhood on various islands and ships,” Webster'ss poetry reflects her “youthful experience with the sea" with its "recurrence of sea imagery" (Hickok 333).
In 1851, Webster and her family resettled in Cambridge, where her father became chief constable. Webster enrolled in classes at the Cambridge School of Art and, in 1860 she began her poetic career by publishing Blanche Lisle, and Other Poems (Hickok 333). Perhaps to preserve her identity, Webster published this collection under the male pseudonym Cecil Home. Nevertheless, readers in Cambridge recognized her as the author of the book (Hickok 333). Under her pseudonym, Webster also included several “overtly political pieces” (333). While many of these poems conformed to current conventions, frequently appearing in the form of “romantic ballads focusing on love and relationships” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.), her inclusion of social themes marks an important characteristic of her life's work.
In 1863, at the age of twenty-six, Augusta Davies married Thomas Webster, a fellow at Trinity College and a solicitor. While Webster and her husband had only one daughter, named Margaret, marriage and motherhood became important themes in Webster’s work. Her next two publications, appearing only a year after her marriage, “chiefly concern the difficulties and complexities of forming happy marital unions” (Hickok 333). Similarly, Webster’s only novel, Lesley’s Guardians (1864), tells the tale of three women “who suffer the tribulations of what Augusta commonly referred to as the ‘marriage market’” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.).
Due to the prevalent concern regarding the limited role of the domestic wife in Webster's work, scholars like Hickok, assuming Webster's work to be autobiographical, have speculated that Webster may have considered her marriage to be a failure. In fact, in her essay "Poets and Personal Pronouns," Webster argues that writers use both the "little i" and the "big I" in their works and that this latter form is autobiographic (qtd. in Fluhr 53). Though perhaps no one will know for certain their cause, Webster’s “feminist commitment to combating the forces that prevent women from fulfilling their intellectual, emotional, and social potential” and her “recognition of the powerlessness of many women at the most crucial juncture of their lives” became central themes of her work (Hickok 333-334).
1866 marked a new beginning in Webster's literary career during which Webster settled into the genres she would later be renowned for: dramatic monologues and verse plays (Hickok 334). In this year Webster published, under her own name, a “critically lauded” translation of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound (Literature Online Bibliography n.pag.). Her publication was a success which emboldened her to publish a version of Euripides’s Medea in 1868. This latter work in particular was "praised" by the "periodicals that were to support Webster's work during her entire subsequent career, the Athenaeum and the Westminster Review" (Hickok 335), periodicals for which Webster frequently published unsigned literary reviews.
Webster also wrote dramatic monologues, which were inspired at least in part by Robert Browning (Bianchi n.pag.). Webster published these works in her collection Dramatic Studies, which Literature Online Biography argues is widely considered “one of her best and most enduring works” (n. pag.).
These early successes with dramatic monologues empowered Webster and, when her family moved to London in 1870 while Thomas worked on establishing his own law practice, Webster committed herself to writing. Her first play, The Auspicious Day, appeared in 1872; in 1874, she published a mélange of translation work and original poetry in Yu-Pe-Ya’s Lute.
Around this time, Webster began to fully develop her social interests and to write on socio-political themes. A Woman Sold and Other Poems, published in 1867, includes a range of styles with a “concern with the place of women in Victorian society" at "centre stage” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.). The title poem of this collection, for example, compares marriages to prostitution. For her unflinching scrutiny of society, Webster was accused of indelicacy, perhaps most vehemently when she published “A Castaway” in 1870 ("Augusta" 1010). Though this collection provoked a public outcry, it also “received the most critical praises and established Webster’s position in Victorian literary culture” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.).
I
Webster sat on the London School Board (Wikimedia Commons)
n the 1870s, Webster continued to write on social themes. In 1879, she published A Housewife’s Opinions, a collection of essays commenting on “women’s rights, employment and education” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.). This same year Webster also became the first woman to sit on the London School Board; she used her position to advocate state-sponsored universal education.
In the final decades of her life, Webster continued to publish poetry in volumes including A Book of Rhyme (1881) and Selections (1893). Despite her literary successes, she suffered from ill health, including "frequent attacks of pleurisy" (Bianchi n.pag.). On September 5, 1894, Augusta Webster passed away in her home in London. William Michael Rossetti edited and Thomas Webster published Mother and Daughter, An Uncompleted Sonnet Sequence posthumously.
After her death, and though a “well-known and critically recognized author during her lifetime,” Webster soon faded from public memory (Literature Online Biography n.pag.). In the 1990s, however, feminist and Victorian critics like Patricia Rigg rediscovered Webster's work. Scholars celebrate Augusta Webster “chiefly for the psychological and social accuracy and the persistent feminism of her dramatic monologues” (Hickok 335).
Published Volumes Blanche Lisle, and Other Poems (1860) Lilian Gray, a Poem (1864) Dramatic Studies (1866) The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus (1866) The Medea of Euripides (1868) A Woman Sold and Other Poems (1867) Portraits (1870) The Auspicious Day (1872) Yu-Pe-La's Lute. A Chinese Tale in English Verse (1874) Disguises; A Drama (1879) A Housewife's Opinions (1879) A Book of Rhyme (1881) In a Day; A Drama (1882) Daffodil and the Croäxaxicans: A Romance of History (1884) A Sentence; a Drama (1887) Selections from the Verse of Augusta Webster (1893)
Mother and Daughter: an Uncompleted Sonnet Sequence (1895)
Works Cited
"Augusta Webster." TheBroadview Anthologyof Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory. Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2005. 1010. Print.
Flurh, Nicola. " 'Telling what's o'er': Remarking the Sonnet Cycle in Augusta Webster's Mother and Daughter." Victorian Poetry 49.1 (2011): 53-81. Project MUSE. Web. 23 March 2015.
Hickok, Kathleen. “Augusta Webster (30 January 1837 - 5 September 1894).” Late Nineteenth-and EarlyTwentieth-Century British Women Poets240.1 (2001): 333-335. GALE. Web. 21 January 2015.
“Webster, Augusta (Davies), Mrs., 1837-1894.” Literature Online Biography. ProQuest, 2012. Web. 23 January 2015.
Further Reading
Boos, Florence S. "Augusta Webster." Victorian Poets After 1850. Ed. William E. Fredeman and Ira Bruce Nadel. Detroit: Gale Research, 1985. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 35. Literature Resource Centre. Web. 2 Feb. 2015.
Introduction
During her lifetime Augusta Webster received critical acclaim for her poetry, which reflects themes about the treatment of women in England during the Victorian Era. Although after her death Webster received little public attention, the 1990s saw a renewal of interest in her work and acknowledgement of her importance as a female Victorian poet and, in particular, as a writer of dramatic monologues.
Biography
Julia Augusta Webster (nee Davies) was born on January 30, 1837, in Poole in the county of Dorset on the southern coast of England. Her parents were Julia Hume and George Davies, a naval officer; she had five siblings. During her childhood, Webster was influenced by the work of her maternal grandfather, Joseph Hume. In 1812, Hume had published a translation of Dante’s Inferno in blank verse, and his friends included notable Romantic writers including William Hazlitt, William Godwin and Charles Lamb. Some scholars such as Hickok have speculated that association with her grandfather “sparked [Webster’s] interest in classical and modern languages, and in religious themes” (333). In fact, Webster went on to study Greek, French, Italian and Spanish, “taking a particular interest in Greek drama” (333). Her interest in languages and in drama influenced and informed her later works.
In 1851, Webster and her family resettled in Cambridge, where her father became chief constable. Webster enrolled in classes at the Cambridge School of Art and, in 1860 she began her poetic career by publishing Blanche Lisle, and Other Poems (Hickok 333). Perhaps to preserve her identity, Webster published this collection under the male pseudonym Cecil Home. Nevertheless, readers in Cambridge recognized her as the author of the book (Hickok 333). Under her pseudonym, Webster also included several “overtly political pieces” (333). While many of these poems conformed to current conventions, frequently appearing in the form of “romantic ballads focusing on love and relationships” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.), her inclusion of social themes marks an important characteristic of her life's work.
In 1863, at the age of twenty-six, Augusta Davies married Thomas Webster, a fellow at Trinity College and a solicitor. While Webster and her husband had only one daughter, named Margaret, marriage and motherhood became important themes in Webster’s work. Her next two publications, appearing only a year after her marriage, “chiefly concern the difficulties and complexities of forming happy marital unions” (Hickok 333). Similarly, Webster’s only novel, Lesley’s Guardians (1864), tells the tale of three women “who suffer the tribulations of what Augusta commonly referred to as the ‘marriage market’” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.).
Due to the prevalent concern regarding the limited role of the domestic wife in Webster's work, scholars like Hickok, assuming Webster's work to be autobiographical, have speculated that Webster may have considered her marriage to be a failure. In fact, in her essay "Poets and Personal Pronouns," Webster argues that writers use both the "little i" and the "big I" in their works and that this latter form is autobiographic (qtd. in Fluhr 53). Though perhaps no one will know for certain their cause, Webster’s “feminist commitment to combating the forces that prevent women from fulfilling their intellectual, emotional, and social potential” and her “recognition of the powerlessness of many women at the most crucial juncture of their lives” became central themes of her work (Hickok 333-334).
1866 marked a new beginning in Webster's literary career during which Webster settled into the genres she would later be renowned for: dramatic monologues and verse plays (Hickok 334). In this year Webster published, under her own name, a “critically lauded” translation of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound (Literature Online Bibliography n.pag.). Her publication was a success which emboldened her to publish a version of Euripides’s Medea in 1868. This latter work in particular was "praised" by the "periodicals that were to support Webster's work during her entire subsequent career, the Athenaeum and the Westminster Review" (Hickok 335), periodicals for which Webster frequently published unsigned literary reviews.
Webster also wrote dramatic monologues, which were inspired at least in part by Robert Browning (Bianchi n.pag.). Webster published these works in her collection Dramatic Studies, which Literature Online Biography argues is widely considered “one of her best and most enduring works” (n. pag.).
These early successes with dramatic monologues empowered Webster and, when her family moved to London in 1870 while Thomas worked on establishing his own law practice, Webster committed herself to writing. Her first play, The Auspicious Day, appeared in 1872; in 1874, she published a mélange of translation work and original poetry in Yu-Pe-Ya’s Lute.
Around this time, Webster began to fully develop her social interests and to write on socio-political themes. A Woman Sold and Other Poems, published in 1867, includes a range of styles with a “concern with the place of women in Victorian society" at "centre stage” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.). The title poem of this collection, for example, compares marriages to prostitution. For her unflinching scrutiny of society, Webster was accused of indelicacy, perhaps most vehemently when she published “A Castaway” in 1870 ("Augusta" 1010). Though this collection provoked a public outcry, it also “received the most critical praises and established Webster’s position in Victorian literary culture” (Literature Online Biography n.pag.).
I
In the final decades of her life, Webster continued to publish poetry in volumes including A Book of Rhyme (1881) and Selections (1893). Despite her literary successes, she suffered from ill health, including "frequent attacks of pleurisy" (Bianchi n.pag.). On September 5, 1894, Augusta Webster passed away in her home in London. William Michael Rossetti edited and Thomas Webster published Mother and Daughter, An Uncompleted Sonnet Sequence posthumously.
After her death, and though a “well-known and critically recognized author during her lifetime,” Webster soon faded from public memory (Literature Online Biography n.pag.). In the 1990s, however, feminist and Victorian critics like Patricia Rigg rediscovered Webster's work. Scholars celebrate Augusta Webster “chiefly for the psychological and social accuracy and the persistent feminism of her dramatic monologues” (Hickok 335).
Published Volumes
Blanche Lisle, and Other Poems (1860)
Lilian Gray, a Poem (1864)
Dramatic Studies (1866)
The Prometheus Bound of Aeschylus (1866)
The Medea of Euripides (1868)
A Woman Sold and Other Poems (1867)
Portraits (1870)
The Auspicious Day (1872)
Yu-Pe-La's Lute. A Chinese Tale in English Verse (1874)
Disguises; A Drama (1879)
A Housewife's Opinions (1879)
A Book of Rhyme (1881)
In a Day; A Drama (1882)
Daffodil and the Croäxaxicans: A Romance of History (1884)
A Sentence; a Drama (1887)
Selections from the Verse of Augusta Webster (1893)
Mother and Daughter: an Uncompleted Sonnet Sequence (1895)
Works Cited
"Augusta Webster." The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry and Poetic Theory. Ed. Thomas J. Collins and Vivienne J. Rundle. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2005. 1010. Print.
Bianchi, Petra. "Webster, (Julia) Augusta (1837–1894)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Web. 29 January 2015. http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/view/article/28940
Flurh, Nicola. " 'Telling what's o'er': Remarking the Sonnet Cycle in Augusta Webster's Mother and Daughter." Victorian Poetry 49.1 (2011): 53-81. Project MUSE. Web. 23 March 2015.
Hickok, Kathleen. “Augusta Webster (30 January 1837 - 5 September 1894).” Late Nineteenth-and Early Twentieth-Century British Women Poets 240.1 (2001): 333-335. GALE. Web. 21 January 2015.
“Webster, Augusta (Davies), Mrs., 1837-1894.” Literature Online Biography. ProQuest, 2012. Web. 23 January 2015.
Further Reading
Boos, Florence S. "Augusta Webster." Victorian Poets After 1850. Ed. William E. Fredeman and Ira Bruce Nadel. Detroit: Gale Research, 1985. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 35. Literature Resource Centre. Web. 2 Feb. 2015.
Brown, Susan, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, eds. "Augusta Webster." Orlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Online, 2006. Web. 2 Feb. 2015.
http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?formname=r&person_id=websau&heading=c
Rigg, Patricia."Augusta Webster and the Lyric Muse: The Athenaeum and Webster's Poetics." Victorian Poetry: 42.4 (2004). 135-164. Project MUSE. Web. 31 January 2015. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/jour
nals/victorian_poetry/v042/42.2rigg.html